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It would be nice if President Obama could take the discussion in a serious direction, first and foremost by making clear what is at issue between the United States and China.

The current view in the United States appears to be that the Chinese should forever commit itself to emitting greenhouse gases at one-third or one-quarter the per capita rate as people in the United States.

Our rationale is apparently that we started polluting the planet first, therefore we get some sort of squatters' rights in the deal. Needless to say, the Chinese are not impressed by this logic. If the United States were in a position to impose its will in this matter on China, then it wouldn't matter that our negotiating position makes no sense, but we aren't.

This means that if we want an agreement, then we will have to depart in a very fundamental way from the current position. We do need China to restricts its greenhouse gas emissions, but we will need to compensate them for this. In other words, we will have to pay them. President Obama has to make the public understand this. If this is too rough a road politically, then let's just acknowledge that we are not going to stop global warming. We should stop wasting money and needlessly polluting the atmosphere for climate meetings like those in Copenhagen.

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